Star Wars Battlefront Beta: Impressions

One word I have to say to describe my all night experience playing in the first day of the open beta today:

WOW

Holy crap, a Star Wars game that actually captures the exact feel of the movies!  My mind is totally blown and this truly feels like Next Gen gaming.  So here's a quick snapshot summary of my impressions so far:

The Good:
   1. The game engine is phenominal!  Heavy blaster and starfighter lasers hit the ground, sending a huge swath of pyrotechnics and fire up into the air just like the movie!  How the soldiers are animated and how both they and the levels react to things (in the Hoth base as the AT-AT walks by or if fighters crash into the hill, snow falls from the ceiling).  Soldiers will 'look' at teammates who pass them or in one super cool incident, I was taking fire from my right side and my soldier grabbed his head and ducked as the shots hit the trench cover on that side.  Soldiers breath and animated very fluidly from the cold, being idle, looking around, etc.  In addition, map design of the entire battlefield of Hoth (with trenches and gobs of turrets and debris, that are all useable and played on) really puts this over the top!

    2. The Star Fighters control beautifully, after some tweaking.  Hint: Do NOT use mouse controls for TURNING.  You have to bind the turn left/right to a keyboard control so you can spin on a time in the more agile fighters.  Picking up and 'dragging' the mouse is the most inefficient manner of turning and will get you killed.  The star fighters currently in the beta are:
        The Tie Fighter (hands down the BEST Imperial fighter) - Generally will outnumber Rebel fighters in any level and have a single photon torpedo launcher.  Way out-classes the X-Wing in terms of maneuverability and firepower.
        The Tie Interceptor - A super up tied fighter with quad lasers instead of dual, also has a DUAL concussion missile system.  Only available near the end of the game, at which point you're only fighting Snowspeeders who are heavily out-classed by this beast.
        The X-Wing - Available only in Phase 1 for pickup (more on this later), it is capable of dishing out the most damage with its Photon Torpedo launcher against the AT-AT once their armor has been broken.  Lasers fire singly, which leaves it getting beat by Tie Fighters BUT it makes up having a Shield ability that you can activate for a limited time to absorb damage for free.
        The A-Wing - My favorite fighter of the Rebels, this beast is the only thing that can outmaneuver the Tie Fighter.  It comes with only 2 lasers (but are dual fired compared to the X-Wing) and dual concussion missile launchers.  Available Phase 2, they generally will give the Rebels air control if in the hands of competent players.
       The Snowspeeder - The slowest and only craft that has a 'flight ceiling' that it cannot fly above.  It's the best at strafing due to its slow speed, and once the Armor is broken on an AT-AT and it is made vulnerable, the pilot can perform a Tow-Cable attack to instantly kill a Walker.  First time I nailed it (just barely!) and was able to win the game for us.

The other vehicles perform amazingly, the AT-ST and AT-AT are both feared things in their own right, while still being vulnerable to infantry if not supported.

    3. The sound is AMAZING.  The constant ambient chatter between the vehicles and soldiers is top-notch, on par with Company of Heroes (the only other game that really nailed it spot on).  I was in the skies with an X-Wing teammate who got shot out from behind while following me, his radio chatter was: "I'm hit!  They came from behi--!" and his X-Wing spiraled out of control and hit the ground.  I immediately did an Immelmann loop and gunned down the 3 Tie Fighters that were on him.  Playing as a Trooper and walking with Vader into the Hoth base, he says the classic "Die, rebel scum." as he proceeds to chew his way through.  Sneaking up with my friend near a AT-AT, his soldier says (as we near its feet) "I have a bad feeling about this..."  Top notch work, very top notch!

    4. The gunplay is spot on/in the right place.  While it does not encourage aiming down sights, which is a refreshing thing as it makes the game truly a blast to play in first person.  No super pinpoint accurate guns ala Call of Duty.  Shots will generally hit an area and there is a ton of blaster fire, just like the opening of the first Star Wars trilogy movie inside Princess Leia's ship.  And people die in 2-3 blaster shots!  That Stormtrooper armor is NOT saving you like the movies!

The Bad:
   1. Powerups - All special weapons and vehicles are powerups, only available in fixed locations on the map during each phase.  Why would the Rebels have their 'X-Wing' powerup in the middle of the path that the AT-AT is coming from?  And the Empire gets theirs in relatively safe places in the back?  And what if you need a rocket launcher to kill an AT-ST?  Good luck finding one, as the 'general' popups are random.  Might give you a deployable turret, a land mine, the rocket launcher, or a deployable shield... very unreliable when you need a certain item in a pinch and no one has it.
   2. 'Jumping' over obstacles can be iffy sometimes.  It appears they removed the 'vault' from the Battlefield series, which can lead to your character having trouble getting out of a trench to get to a manned gun or just to clear a sandbag!  Jump packs significantly make this point moot but I shouldn't need to get that item to just navigate the terrain without issue.
    3. No Classes - This feels really apparent as there are only 4 'guns' in the beta, with the final 2 being significantly better than the starting weapons for each faction.  No Anti-Tank operative to deal with walkers, no 'support' guy to place shields to protect against Orbital Bombardments or set up deployable turrets in places that MAKE sense.  If anything, I wish they implemented it like the original custom Call of Duty servers, like say X-Wing pilot is a class and there are only 2 on your team.  So you lock it in and you can't ever have any more than 2 people playing X-Wing.  Beats the silly powerup system where people like me camp the powerup and take it once the noob in it dies and he'll never get again.  At least it's not a killstreak system, awarding only the good stuff to the best player, but still... would prefer to have people dedicated to things.
   4. Random Spawns - You never know where you're going to spawn and the game is ONLY playable with at least one friend.  Why is that?  Good powerups are at fixed locations, and dying means a super long walk back to the field.  Whileas in a team, you can spawn on ANY teammate, allowing you to instantly get back into the action (and leading to some where things where two 'squads' are fighting each other and dudes are immediately spawning next to them).  Would like to see a deployable for forward spawn rather than poofing in the middle of a room where a firefight is going (also leads to aggressive Spawn Camping if the other team pushes to your area.  In my fighter for example, I can hide behind their 'air spawn' and instantly kill any fighter coming in if they lose air superiority).

The 'Meh':
    1. There's three game modes, but 2 are practically boring and unplayable.  AI 'Horde Mode' is super easy and not challenging, they only allow you to play 6 easy waves with ONE friend, though they say it will eventually have 15 waves.  Why only implement part of it?  The 'dropzone mode' isn't as much fun, me and my friend dominated 5-1 as it is only 8v8, and we easily crush the competition, considering Walker Assault Mode is 20v20 (and FEELS and LOOKS like a Star Wars battlefield and makes you feel like in a war and not an arena game), me and him usually place the 1st and 2nd positions on our team, easily carrying them.  (Generally me and him will net about 80-100 kills between us, while dying anywhere from 15-20 times each).  Once I get into a fighter I can single-handedly control the skies while he's very strong as a soldier.  We'd send him in first to clear out hallways of enemies while backing him up.
   2. Walker Assault mode is the only way to play this game, though looking at the future 'locked' modes, if the Star Fighter mode is 20v20 we got a real winner here.  The other modes don't look anywhere as near interesting (Cargo? Bomb defense/plant?  If they're not full 20v20 matches, they won't be popular).
    3. Only ONE map!? - There's only one map for each of the three game modes in currently (Walker Assault on Hoth, CoOp Wave Mode on Tatooine, and Drop Zone on some volcano planet I don't know).  While the gameplay is really fun, I want to see new environments and new vehicles!
    4. Customization for troopers is NOT in - Locked for beta, can't customize your trooper to be an alien or where certain clothing.  You can change your equipped powerups and guns though.  And randomly there are males AND females for both sides to listen (both in vehicles and on foot).  Caught me by surprise hearing FEMALES in the Imperial side, which never would happen in the movies but I always play female characters, so it's a boon to someone like me to be more inclusive and get the character I want, but a bit jarring... like if they allow Aliens in the Empire which is xeno-phobic by its very nature... know what I mean?

Overall, I give the game a 8/10, pending the other game modes.  But it definitely ranked up there on my 'To Buy' list now.  I was on the fence before (and I just finished the terrible Rainbow Six Siege beta), with the Don'tPlay launcher (UPlay is the name of the client, but it frequently had issues), the gunplay was lacking and the game a little too fast to properly coordinate stuff, but the environment destructibility was a lot of fun.

So coming from that to this... it's like WOW.  EA/Dice actually didn't screw up a game by just trying to milk the franchise and actually have made a very respectable game!  Kudos to EA (for a change!  Now only if they didn't kill all those other games series up to this point....)

PS - On a side note, some people on other game forums have complained 'rebels never win'.  I've won many games as rebels (first time playing though when you don't know where powerups are and the Rebels rely on them a lot more than Imperials), but I can see why.  Empire will lean heavily on its superior vehicles (and they're supposed to have the advantage) but Rebels can easily work together as a 20-man team to focus and bring the walkers down through concentrated fire through the 3 phases.  And if the Rebels have air superiority by the 3rd phase, they can snatch a last minute victory by using the Snowspeeders to tow-cable the walkers and instant kill them, regardless of their remaining life.  I generally find it is actually EASIER for the Rebel team to win assuming that everyone on the team is playing well or at least a good chunk are supporting the top echelon players like myself who can carry and suppress the entire enemy team. ^^